Franklin D. Roosevelt

Franklin Delano Roosevelt served as the 32nd President of the United States from 1932 to 1945. Hailing from a very wealthy New York family, he grew up traveling extensively throughout Europe and receiving a top-notch primary education with private tutors.

After attending the elite Groton School and later completing his undergraduate studies at Harvard, Roosevelt attended Columbia Law School from 1904 to 1907, dropping out after preemptively passing the New York bar (he was awarded a posthumous JD in 2008).

During his presidency, Roosevelt lead the country through the Great Depression with his reform program, the New Deal, that aimed to alleviate unemployment and stimulate economic growth.

Ruth Bader Ginsburg

Ruth Bader Ginsburg has been pushing the boundaries of the legal world since 1956, when she enrolled in Harvard Law School as one of nine women in a class of 500. She later transferred to Columbia Law School, graduating in 1959.

Ginsburg was the second woman to become a Supreme Court justice, where she still serves today. In 1993, she was officially appointed by President Bill Clinton after a long legal and academic career in which she fought voraciously against gender discriminationin the workplace and society.

Ginsburg taught at Columbia Law for eight years, becoming the first tenured female professor. Her daughter, Jane, currently teaches at Columbia Law School.

Theodore Roosevelt

Characterized by his staunch views and rigid ambition, Teddy Roosevelt served as the 26th and youngest president of the United States after President McKinley was assassinated in 1901.

Roosevelt, like his distant cousin Franklin, attended Harvard for his undergraduate degree and then enrolled in Columbia Law School—and again, like his cousin, dropped out before receiving his degree, in order to run for a local office (he too was awarded a posthumous JD in 2008).

Born with debilitating asthma, Roosevelt pursued intense exercise and health. He later became a prominent naturalist and wrote over 40 published books and hundreds of articles.

Caroline Kennedy

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Caroline Kennedy was no stranger to the political spotlight. She lived in the White House from the age of three until her father, President John F. Kennedy, was assassinated when she was just shy of six years old.

Years later, she received her undergraduate degree at Harvard and worked a time at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. She later attended Columbia Law, graduating in 1988.

She has continued to carry on the Kennedy legacy in politics, becoming a strong supporter of Barack Obama during his 2008 presidential campaign. In 2013, President Obama appointed Kennedy as the US Ambassador to Japan.

Eric Holder

He served as legal advisor to then-Senator Barack Obama during his first presidential campaign, later becoming a one of three members on his vice-presidential selection committee.

After receiving his bachelor's degree at Columbia, Holder graduated from Columbia Law with his JD in 1976. He worked at Covington & Burling in Washington, D.C., before and after his time as attorney general, recently taking on Airbnb as a client.

Benjamin Cardozo

Benjamin Cardozo made up one-third of the US Supreme Court’s famed Three Musketeers— along with Columbia Law alum and ex-dean, Harlan Fiske Stone, and Louis Brandeis — and served on the Supreme Court for six years between 1932 and 1938.

Robert L. Carter

Wikimedia Commons

Robert L. Carter received his LLM from Columbia Law in 1941, writing a master’s thesis on the First Amendment that would later heavily influence the NAACP’s legal strategy.

Carter, who died in 2012 at age 94, worked closely with Thurgood Marshall — the first African-American Supreme Court justice — for many years and served as the lead counselin the landmark Supreme Court case Brown v. Board of Education that ruled segregation in public schools unconstitutional.

During his time as an NAACP lawyer, Carter argued 22 cases in front of the Supreme Court and won 21 of them. He was appointed as a US district judge by President Richard Nixon in 1972.

Bella Abzug

Associated Press

A longtime social activist and politician, Bella Abzug fought passionately for women’s rights and social equality during her time in the House of Representatives from 1971 to 1977.

Before her time in public office, Abzug earned her law degree from Columbia Law in 1947, going on to tackle civil rights cases for over two decades.